This is a proposal to continue the MBRS Program at Rutgers- Newark, now to start in the IMSD format, which has superseded the existing Associate Investigator format. We are currently in our 15th year of continuous funding. The current proposal is to maintain the existing MBRS faculty with the exception of one member who is retiring this year (Ian Fryer), for a total of 13 faculty members. We propose to provide training and support of 10 undergraduate students and 11 graduate students to enable them to perform original biomedical research research. The main goals of the proposed continuation of our MBRS Program are: 1.To increase the number of qualified applicants into the Program, 2.To improve the academic performance and thereby the competitiveness of the MBRS students in our Program, 3. To increase the number of MBRS students entering a career in biomedical research, and 4. To continually improve our MBRS Program's responsiveness to the needs of its participants. The specific objectives and methods to achieve these goals are specified in the proposal. The productivity of our MBRS Program until now has included: production of 9 PhD's (3 in the past year plus one more expected next month), 12 Masters degree awardees, 7 RN's, 5 MD's, 3 Assistant Professors, and 1 Full Professor. We propose means of maintaining and increasing this level of productivity.